It's one of those things that Blair screwed up.

Good companies would give 1 week on full pay (but some gave nothing). Blair thought all companies should allow paternity leave, and stipulated 2 weeks – but unpaid.

Guess what many companies do now…

Any pics?

Just recently set up a photobucket account – will have to post some up

Is there anything to suggest that the IR SAMs are Stingers??

Surely, anything supplied to the mujahideen in the 80s would be seriously past shelf life by now? The extract I saw on the BBC link just reference MANPAD (man portable air defence).

Could equally be ex Soviet SA7 / SA14 / SA16 / SA18. SA14 has previously been reported as used in Baghdad by islamist insurgents, and SA16 / SA18 systems have been used by Chechen rebels.

Ooops – missed these replies been busy / away at the w/e.

Really enjoying this bike more and more as I am getting used to it 😛 particularly the really fine balance and handling.

Oddly, the best comparison I can give is with my Lucky Stike HT… it has a sublime fluidity that I can't really describe – except by comparison with the Ti HT. It does feel twitchy at low speeds, but gets much more stable at high speed (gyroscopic effect of wheels I guess), and is very responsive to slight changes of balance / weight.

Sounds eighties Dump the steel parts and treat it to alloy parts

Tyredoctor – It's early 90s rather than 80s – and I'm not sure that there is much steel on it (apart from the frame).

The only things I'm tempted to change are the old Conti GP tyres and Fizik saddle, which is a bit chunky. Components all seem to work well…

1st generation STi levers, 105 mechs and dual pivot brakes
Campag 53/39 chainset (not Record – Chorus??)
Mavic Open 4CD rims on Shimano(?) hubs.

A 23" 531 frame will generally weigh around 5.5-6lbs with fork and headset

Haven't stripped down to frame and forks. Built up weight is less than the Lucky Strike, which was about 23lbs depending on tyre fit. I'd guess somewhere about 21lbs all in???

Planning Permnission isn't required by Local Authorities for lots of development that Joe Public would be required to get permission for.

Been working on a project recently for a Government Quango – and advised them to get the Council to do it to dodge Planning

I almost choked when I read the small print on that one.

Now, lets see??

Punter gives them £1,000 EVERY month – for a fiver back?????

Dire, absolutely cringeworthy.

Yeah they used to be the 'brave mujahadeen freedom fighters'.

ie – it's a war;
shit happens;
joe public doesn't get told about it…

Yep, nothing new, nothing surprising, nothing learnt.

Yeah they used to be the 'brave mujahadeen freedom fighters'.

Ahh, but that was when Osama was on the CIA's payroll…..

A good book on the US' recent wars on terror is
The Circuit.

Written by a "gung ho" special forces soldier, turned civilian military contractor, turned critical insider commentator. This gives a pretty good expose of how deeply in the mire "our" foreign and military policy is

when the pressure to get out gets greater and the cost more unsustainable we will do a 'Deal' with the Taliban.

Can't see that happening. The Taliban know that they don't need to come to the table – we don't have any leverage over them. The Afghans are used to the "long game". Why go for a compromised negotiated outcome when you can just sit tight and outlast your opponent??

Some people are seriously short on their history

No ones mentioned price ….. at £25 a month

its worth it even if i dont watch it much

You might have to explain that one to me…

We ditched Sky about 5 or 6 years ago. Waste of money unles you want the premium sport content

What differences do tyres make on a road bike (apart from speed / acceleration)?

Might sound a numpty question, but I've recently started riding my road bike again, after a 15 year break.

Obviously the bike has a very different feel and handling characteristics to even the lightest, raciest mtb that I have owned – and I was wondering how much of this "feel" is down to the geometry / frame / bike setup and how much is down to the tyres. Coming from a (recent) mtb background I accept that changing tyres can make a huge difference to the feel of the bike and wondered if it was as big a factor on a road bike.

Very skinny 15+ year old Conti GPs terrified me when I first got on the bike, but I am getting used to them now (I think :o)) Given the age of the tyres, I was thinking about changing them for something a little more up to date

Went to he RIAT show at Fairford last w/e.

Vulcan flew at that, and was probably one of the stars of the show – just the raw power of the thing, especially given it's vintage

F22 was impressive in its own technologically advanced, trump everyone else US kind of way.

To my amazement, to most jaw dropping display was from a prop driven transport plane – the new Airbus A400-M.

It seemed to defy the laws of physics. I thought big planes fell out of the air when they did what that plane did

Sirloin Steak 😛

If you desperately want the carbs add some spinach steamed over boiled new potatoes

Well, first commute on the old road bike happened today. All good fun, although I took it fairly gently on what are now damp road surfaces.

About 5 mins quicker than the mtb (over 14 miles).

Thought it would be easier (lighter, bigger wheels, no knobblies etc), but HRM showed I was 10-15bpm over my normal HR. Always working the bigger gears I suppose – 53/39 and an 11-23 cassette required a very different approach to the hills!!

Need to get used to the ride and handling now.

Fairly sure that the frame / forks are Nivachrome steel Columbus EL Oversize. Bike is less twitchy than I remembered – although needs concentration / good weight distribution for cornering. Straight line stability feels totally diffrent to the mtb, but needs good spotting of potholes coming up in order to avoid them!

Consider myself a retro-niche road bike convert 😉

Another thumbs up for the Airborne Ti post. I assume Van Nic still do the same…

Ti post wont make much difference unless you have a fair bit of posat sticking out of the frame though.

As posted above – SD / HD is very much part of the TV terminology…

Old films were shot in celluloid, no pixel count, better than HD…..

My Ti HT was definately referred to as "she".

Damn quick, agile, lithe, tempermental, skittish, hard to control, chuck you off in an instant, deeply rewarding, oh, and beautiful….

Also, to rest my case, she had this on the top tube:

Pop punk – a big wTF???

There's been loads of bands with jangly guitars and attitude, but not "punk" – I think we used to call them "indie" 🙄

My first thought at the term Pop Punk was Carter USM, but the "pop" part doesn't do just to their cutting social commentaries…

Thanks. We're flying then hiring, so not as easy as taking our own car across with all the normal stuff in it.

Kids are 8 and 10, but both are fairly tall, so we were wondering whether we would need to take / hire booster seats.

Oh dear, come on children…

TG has always been pretty irreverent, and anyone who has watched the last 14 series will be entirely familiar with the format and style of humour.

My original comment was that the humour had taken a more adult (although note, not explicit) tone for the current series – and no, I wasn't complaining about the word cock. I wasn't being "outraged from Tonbridge Wells" – my kids will continue to watch and enjoy TG.

If anyone has lost a sense of perspective it is those posters who are comparing the peak time weekend evening broadcast output of the UK public sector broadcaster with a niche sports / leisure forum on the internet….. 🙄

GT Team colours from back in the day.

Hah – it was the "custard tin" Panasonic and GT team jerseys (blue with yellow arms / "splashes") that I had with my first proper bike!!!

For some reason the GT one stayed in my drawer, but the custard tin got binned

Not mtb / club, but certainly distinctive…

Sportlife Panasonic

It's good for re-sealing HTII bearings…..

😮

Police or ISP….

could be devastating to someone older or in a vulnerable situation

Didn't see this Sunday's episode, and can't remember too many specifics about the previous episodes from this series, but there has definately been an increase in the fnar fnar content.

Doesn't worry me in the slightest – except that the kids have taken a liking to TG.

Yes I think most of the references are, in themselves, pretty difficult for kids to spot – but the adult audience in stitches gives the kids a pretty strong cue that something funny has been said, and they then ask why…

… I'm sure Clarkson et al talking about sex toys and orgasms could be very funny – but they do need to decide on who their audience is – and therefore what time the show goes out

riiight…are you the Trail Taliban, or am I? I can't quite work it out.

I'm no trail fundamentalist…

… but this topic used to get frequent airings on mtb-wales.com 5-6 years ago*. My general line of argument was as many of you above have posted – ignorant, stupid people walking up the wall descent, for example, should not be on mtb trails.

However, it was pointed out by the forum admin / owner (and former trail builder involved in the Penhydd build) that FC could not do anything about walkers etc, other than put up warning signs. There is / was no legal mechanism to exclude walkers from mtb trails.

Compare this with the measures installed by FC (at a similar time) to exclude illegal trail use such as mxers. FC could (and have extensively) put in MX gates at the start of each singletrack section because the legal framework allows this.

The inability to exclude walkers from FC land, which has always been an open access land estate AFAIK, means that walkers and cyclists have to tolerate each other's presence. Mtbers understanding this inconvenient truth is a good start.

Furthermore, as I have posted on here several times, just being on a purpose built mtb trail is not going to absolve a rider of liability if they hit someone whilst riding out of control.

* Possibly because mtb-wales was a healthy, vibrant, argumentative 😉 forum back then, but also perhaps because the S Wales trails were some of the earliest to be built close to centres of population…?)

TG has some quality moments – although I think theyt have become fewer and further between over the last couple of series.

The presenters have long since become parodies of themselves – which works / worked to a point, but is now getting rather tiresome.

Yes it is still funny, but there is more dross to sit through. The language and innuendo have got a lot worse during this series, with a lot of oblique sexual references and humour, which is not particularly clever for that time of evening. Does BBC still have a 9:00pm watershed?

And yes, a diet consisting purely of supercars does get a little dull. The occaisional cheap(er) but fun car added to the mix would be good.

Yer dead right love! It's great when idiots are undone by thier own stupidity, and i include myself in that statement if i come off due to lack of talent…

Ohh, that's fine then*.
.
.
.
.
Presumably

It's great when idiots are undone by thier own stupidity, and i include myself in that statement

means you'd be quite happy to take a stint inside for said stupidity???

My cousin spent a few years in HMP Dartmoor for something similar that didn't quite turn out as expected….
.
.
.
.* feed the trolls time 😮

If i hit a walker on a red run, i'd be back on the bike and offski, i aint got no reg plate so find me, f***erz!

Really?? So if you hit and maimed a child you'd just up and off??

What a disgrace – no wonder mtbers are looked at in such a negative light by other countryside usrs… That sort of attitude does us no favours at all

Hm…see the dog thread for an insight into the psychology of what constitutes a legitimate use of a bike-specific trail.

Thats sounds fairly derogatory, and pretty much sums up the problem with some mtbers psyche / outlook.

The trails may be designed as "bike specific" and that is their sole intended purpose. But, unless they are privately owned and run, private club / membership and on private land, walkers have as much legal right to access and use them as we have…

Agreed, it's not particularly sensible, but I wouldn't want to be sued by a walker that I couldn't stop for

ti_pin_man, what you say is actually highly desirable.

If you'd asked me before I'd done my CBT / DAC I would have been sceptical. Having done those (even as a regular cycle commuter) I was shocked into re-considering my own car driving behaviour.

As someone posted above, it's less about driver aggresion (which is shocking, but rare) and more about driver attention. I'd guess that as many as 1 in 10 drivers might actually be properly paying attention to what they are doing – but is probably far less than that.

On the motorbike I found that I was fully engaged, all of the time. Bike handling, engine / gears / clutch / braking, surface conditions, 3D spatial awareness, where the gaps are, etc, etc, etc.

OK, part of that was being a new rider, but the levels and continuity of concentration involved shocked me into realising that I just don't pay sufficient attention when driving a car – too isolated / cocooned in that comfortable, warm, toy laden cockpit.

The idea of getting car drivers out on two wheels (even for a day) is really to reinforce that they are so isolated from whats going on around them, the space other road users need and the vulnerability of other road users.

There is absolutely no reason at all (political or practical) why a form of CBT couldn't be introduced as part of obtaining your provisional car licence. Making prospective car drivers expereince the road from other users perspectives could easily and usefully be incorporated into a day's CBT course.

Nothing fascist or unworkable about it.

look down and what do I see…..

Comin' for to carry me home,
A band of angels comin' after me,
Comin' for to carry me home

Long enough and hard enough to see their pupils narrow – how else do you know you've made an impession ??

Milan Indian Restaurant – North Quay was the place I was thinking of. Odd name for an Indian??

interesting re Norway – what are their crash statistics like?

I don't know. The way I was told it at the time (over 20 yrs ago now :-() was that road fatalities were pretty shocking and that's why a very rigorous regime was brought in.

I believe that there were also issue with alcohol wrapped up in their road fatality stats – the Norwegians I met couldn't put a lid back on a bottle (by tradition)

ETA – ohh and they have some fairly challenging roads / conditions compared to us – although we have more traffic….)

There is a nice curry house next to the marina – pretty expensive though*

* possible that I have only expereinced TT prices 🙁

see where you're coming from but it's a fairly stupid, unworkable, fascist idea

Stupid – The principle is far from stupid, given the standard of driving on our roads. You always get some idiots, but the general level of inattentiveness of most car drivers is truly shocking.

Unworkable – Quite probably right, although not necessarily so. I'm not familiar with current car driver training, but there could easily be some re-alignment to make the initial stages similar to m/cycle training. Get new drivers to attend a one day CBT before they go out on the road. Where on the m/cycle CBT there is a carpark bike handling session, give them a class room session and get them out on a bike – pedal or 125 doesn't matter (althoguh 125 would obviously need the m/cycle handling bit…)

As it stands at the moment any 17 year old can jump in his / her parents car and go for a (supervised) drive with no training at all – and worse, could go all the way through to their test without having had any proper training.

Fascist – Well if denying inexperienced drivers the right to go out on the roads without proper training is fascist, then so be it…. I went to Norway as a student in 1988, and even then they had a very strict three part driving test – college course plus exam (ie several months plus exam, not just a turn up on the day multi-choice) before they could go near a car, followed by practical training / test, followed by winter / ice training and test.

I did my m/cycle test 20 yrs after passing the car test. I thought I was a reasonable driver, but I learned an embarrassing amount – and not just about the bike specific bits… My thoughts at the time were:

a) everyone should have a compulsory refresher every 5yrs or retest every 10 – failure not necessarily resulting in disqualification as nerves might cause some mistakes. Say a fail results in an additional course to address the failure discrepency.

b) all drivers (unless physically unable) to have to do the m/cycle CBT as a minimum before registering for a car provisional. Not necessarily to learn bike handling, but as a pre-requisite to understanding other road users vulnerability.